The Band.

RT doing some great fills in some of hybrid Robbie/RT style. And then singing the Rick part!

Here it is: Richard Manuel, Roger McGuinn and some others. backing up none other than John Sebastian.#onethread!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM1FxU9I9YA

I saw this played that night, but just noticed the rehearsal was up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WmlUXsjSv8

Something that I think sometimes gets overlooked about the Band and at least some of its acolytes amidst all the Ol Weird Americana discussion is the huge soul music influence, especially vocally. I think Manuel worshipped Ray Charles, iirc, and a lot of British singers in particular (from Steve Winwood or Gary Brooker to Peter Gabriel to Mark Hollis) aspired to this similarly bucolic soulfuness that often got subsumed by the surrounding artiness. Not a coincidence that "Baby Don't You Do It" is the final Last Waltz encore.

Oh for sure, at heart they were always a soul/r&b band — that then incorporated a lot of other influences, folk and country and psychedelia, but that was their root. It's why Dylan loved them to start with.

OTM. The SNL Richard Manuel vocal on "Georgia On My MInd" is, um, mindblowing. (Think the video can be found but not on YouTube) Also, a lot of less attentive viewers think "Baby Don't You Do It" is the first song at the show and not the last one.
(xp)

Forgot about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHDT10DX2UQ

Does that mean I should click on it? I asked my inner voice and no was all it said.

SNL "Georgia On My Mind": https://vimeo.com/127180623

Thanks! Thought about linking to Amy Helm's FB page but waited a beat.

i'd like the band a lot more if richard manuel sang all the songs tbh

I see what you mean, but no.

Nonetheless when I walked into the place I usually eat lunch "Katie's Been Gone" was playing because they had put on a certain playlist in Robbiie's honor and I had a very brief Ozu-level moment of tearing up.

I love all three voices, wouldn't want to lose any of them.

Otm

Thanks for posting that clip, Grisso. I’d forgotten how incredible that is.

Also, I’m reminded that tubist Howard Johnson was the only member of the Rock of Ages horn section to stick with the Band all the way through to Levon’s late ‘00s solo recordings/performances.

Also if Richard sang lead on everything then he wouldn’t be able to do his special effects backing vocal magic like those ever so high and creaky “ee ee ee”s on “The Weight.”
(xp)

Have you guys ever read that great interview with Howard Johnson that is out there? It might even be linked upthread.

I was at that spectacle taping, and it sucked, in my view. The conceit was "building a band," and indeed Toussaint and Thompson were on top of their shit, but Helm (who was very weak, probly ravaged by chemo) and Lowe (who seemed as if he was completely unaccustomed to playing bass by that point) barely played, Lowe maybe not at all, and were doubled by Farragher and Thomas (Naive was present but Toussaint needed no one to cover for him). It was a cute concept, but disappointing in that the rhythm section as presented was non functional. They did multiple takes of "the weight," which by then and certainly now I consider to be the most basic bitch song anyone can possibly choose to sing in front of a bunch of basic older folks who probly went to the bottom line often and would have been thrilled to see that basic Ray Lamontagne guy, who was there and sang verses of that basic-ass song with gusto. the only thing that I was kinda tickled by was that EC (who is not a good interviewer or host onstage, and you think he would be) had the imposters do "rag Mama rag," in which he debuted additional verses that described in glowing and occasionally legit funny terms his four guests.

the producer of this show is the writer of the '87 magazine article cited above, containing the marty getting mad about partying portrayed in a mag article anecdote. this guy made a career out of buddy buddy schmoozing with guys like EC and JRR, and was employed by VH1/Viacom/other outlets for the express purpose of being able to get guys like them to do shit like that show.

Thanks, this is good info and makes sense. In the video Nick is strumming a guitar I thought, are you saying he was trying to play bass during the rehearsal?

Feel like maybe the last time he was actually (under)playing bass was with Little Village.

kinda cool to hear AT take a verse though

Definitely.

Hot Soul single by Levon & The Hawks (written by Robertson) on Atco, 1964

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzMiF5Kw_wI

Lowe was presented during most of the taping with a bass strapped around his upper body, but he seemed to be unaccustomed to it, and I'm certain that on several, or rather probly every single song "the band" that night played, Davey Faragher was generating the bass sound. Same with Helm and Pete Thomas. After a while, and definitely during the multiple takes of the "the Weight," Lowe was playing acoustic: he and Thompson were PIGS IN SHIT singing that song, which I suppose is understandable in light of how much The Band and MfBP means to them. Helm could not sing that song nor any other by that point: he would be dead two years later and making him go through the motions of pretending to play the drums was fucked up, although if he enjoyed himself that night, i guess it was okay. EC did ask him when he played the Apollo before and he was able to whisper into a mic that he played there once before, in 1959 with the Hawk.

The footage one of you guys posted of Wilco and Mavis Staples is not from the Spectacle show at the Apollo theatre in 2009/2010, whenever it was: I would assume it's from the time that Lowe was opening for Wilco and and Tweedy produced Staples.

This last sounds right.

Perhaps you will prefer this version from Ringo & His All-Starr Band in 1989, static and all, the All-Starrs in this case being a mashup of The Band & The E Street Band + Dr. John for good measure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUuL3Ypox-s

Found the Hojo interview again. It’s a treat from beginning to end, from his early beginnings as a very talented music student to the anecdotes about all the famous cats he’s worked with such as John Lennon and Paul Simon to name two. I regret that I missed a chance to see him perform while he was still alive but he wouldn’t be the only one.

https://www.rollmagazine.com/howard-johnson%e2%80%99s-hornspiration-theres-always-room-for-something-new/

The Wilco, Mavis, Lowe rehearsal is from backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago in December 2011. They also appeared on Sound Opinions around that time.

FWIW Amy Helm was gracious:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvveHNQR202/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

"Not many Pop groups like that..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8xZGEHErDA

Fun fact: Howard Johnson’s recording debut was with the Bill Dixon 7-Tette in 1964, the Savoy release with Dixon on the A side and Archie Shepp on the B side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0ZlgXKB27s

Of the Rock Of Ages horn section, J.D. Parran also played with Dixon (I saw him with Bill’s orchestra in 2007), and I *think* Joe Farrell did too at one point.

Also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq-llysqjzw

Cool, thanks. Forgot about that, same way I forgot about some of the other cameo appearances in his story. Eric Dolphy! Walter Sear!

How the hell did I make it this long (and we are talking a LONG time) thinking it was Annie, and not Fanny?

same here!

probably because that's the way Aretha sings it! there's a story about that i think

The f’s just roll into each other. Annie makes more sense.

I think it's both! Or, rather, all three.

Annie in the chorus, Anna Lee in the third verse, and Fanny in the fifth v verse.

She's the only one who sends me here with her regards for everyone. That's definitely Fanny.

I get how Annie is short for Anna Lee but Fanny doesn’t seem to fit in at all. I guess it was sort of an in-vogue hippy chick name at the time.

According to Wikipedia, Fanny and Anna Lee are different people.

I love Before the Flood but it's also kind of ludicrous, isn't it? Dylan's singing is all over the place and lots of bellowing, the songs sacrifice subtlety for velocity and volume. But the Band sounds great.

And its version of "It Ain't Me Babe" rules, practically punk.

I'm guessing Barry Gibb was a fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqtzloiPxZE

Randy Bachman from FB:

I first met Robbie Robertson at Le coq D’or in Toronto in 1964 when The Guess Who was just taking off with “Shakin’ All Over.” He played so bluesey and incredible that I took the opportunity to ask him how he bent notes like that. He said the secret was to buy a set of Gretsch Strings and put them on his Telecaster. So the extra 2 strings meant he strung a High E, a B and then another B instead of the G. This allows you to
bend them to play blues notes. It literally transformed my entire style of playing and stayed with me throughout my career. Thank you for the incredible music. #RIP #musician

I love Before the Flood but it's also kind of ludicrous, isn't it? Dylan's singing is all over the place and lots of bellowing, the songs sacrifice subtlety for velocity and volume. But the Band sounds great.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, August 10, 2023 10:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

totally i've always loved the complete coked out mania of that record

xpost

My understanding is that back then, packs of strings came with a hard-to-bend wound G. So I guess Bachman means that Robertson's One Weird Old Trick was to use a spare B - which was unwound - for his G. What I don't get is the implication that Gretsch guitars had eight strings?

there was "nashville tuning" as well, he may have gotten the idea from that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_tuning_(high_strung)

xxpost

Love Garth's bonkers little synth flourishes on "Ballad of A Thin Man"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3X82K7YU4k

Before the Flood is definitely bonkers. That tour (which was only 6 weeks long) and especially that album got a lot of ridiculous praise when they first came out, and I understand why - except for the occasional one-off show or guest appearance, Dylan hadn't toured in eight years, and that was the legendary 1966 tour. Even his recording output had slowed down to a trickle. The hype of having him back, on stage and on record, with no less than the Band was unavoidable.

I always got the impression that the adoration for those shows soon faded (at least by the end of the decade), and since then has only drawn mixed reactions. It's still a good tour, and had I been alive and caught any of those shows, I'm sure it would've been a contender for THE greatest concert experience I've ever had. I think it's great how Dylan seems to be raging against nostalgia - even though his setlists leaned heavily on his best-known songs (particularly three weeks in when he more or less stopped playing any new material) and everyone's reason to go was more or less nostalgia, the performances are ferocious and none of the arrangements try to re-create what he put on record, a practice he continues to this day. But performance-wise it was still a cut below their best tours - 1966 and 1975 for Dylan, the "Rock of Ages"/Academy shows from 1971 for the Band - and they all seemed to know it. It's strange that the final shows dominate the live album because by the end of the tour, Dylan was oversinging by his own admission, just doing it with as much force as possible with very little subtlety.

one great thing about the 1974 Dylan/Band shows is that Robertson kind of cuts loose on the Dylan material — he kinda stuck close to the script on The Band stuff during their live shows, but there are some recordings in 74 where he's seriously just winging it and sounding incredible... one of the Tom Thumb Blues from that tour is incredible. I think they could definitely do a big set a la the 75 Rolling Thunder collection that would be killer (and get people to reassess the vibe of that period somewhat).

The Bootleg Series Vol. 20: Wow, Lotta Energy, Man